Wilfried Nancy’s woeful reign as Celtic’s manager has ended after 33 days – the shortest managerial career in the Scottish club’s history. Martin O’Neill has been reinstalled as interim manager until the end of the season.
The 48-year-old French coach was hired from the Major League Soccer side Columbus Crew on a two-and-a-half year contract on 4 December. He was in charge for only eight matches, six of which ended in defeat, before being sacked by the crisis-hit Scottish champions on Monday. A 3-1 home defeat by Rangers on Saturday proved the final straw. Celtic led 1-0 at half-time before a second-half collapse prompted more protests towards the club’s deeply unpopular board and their most recent managerial appointment.
Despite the turmoil at Celtic Nancy took over a team that had won seven of eight games under the interim manager O’Neill to move back into title contention. The popular 73-year-old, who replaced Brendan Rodgers in October, will come back for a second time this season as Celtic start their search for a permanent manager again. O’Neill’s assistant during his interim spell, Shaun Maloney, is back too.
O’Neill said in a statement: “I know we would all have hoped for things to have worked out differently under Wilfried and I personally want to wish him good luck with everything he does in the game. He is a fine man and I am sure he will go on and achieve success again, I have no doubt of that.
“For me, I’ve been asked to take this great job on again and my focus will be to try and get us back to winning ways if we can. We will need everyone right behind us.”
Nancy became the first Celtic manager to lose his first two matches before suffering a humiliating defeat by St Mirren in the Scottish League Cup final. When his next game ended in a 2-1 reverse at Dundee United it was the first time since 1978 that Celtic had lost four games in succession. Nancy won two matches – against 10-man Aberdeen and the bottom club Livingston – and presided over a calamitous defence that failed to keep a clean sheet and conceded 18 goals in eight games, one more than in the previous 24 matches.
Celtic are six points behind the league leaders, Hearts, and have managed to out-do Rangers in terms of disastrous managerial appointments this season. Russell Martin lasted 123 days and 17 games in the shortest managerial reign in Rangers’ history.
In a brief statement thanking Nancy for his efforts Celtic confirmed his assistants Kwame Ampadu, Jules Gueguen and Maxime Chalier had also left along with Paul Tisdale, their head of football operations. Tisdale, a former Exeter City manager, was also a target for disillusioned Celtic supporters for the dismal player recruitment during his 15 months in the role.
Since winning the title last season, Celtic have parted company with two permanent managers in Rodgers and Nancy, and a head of football operations in Tisdale, and the chair Peter Lawwell stepped down in response to fierce criticism of how the club is run.
